Love
by TBOtaku
Summary: My newest work!! I guess this hiatus stuff was just too much... ^_^V A short one-scene fluff fic becomes a fully-fledged NEW SERIES!! Sigh... Yuffie dreams of a recently dead Vincent...but what is really the truth? Together again with the old gang, she wi


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Love   
By TBOtaku   
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In the embracing humidity, under a starry canopy of vast darkness, Yuffie Kisaragi sat on a park bench. And did…   
  
Nothing.   
  
She had done nothing since it had happened. She couldn't. She had nothing now, WAS nothing; her taut muscles and short silky hair and rich, tanned skin were merely a shell that covered the gray, empty nothingness that was her soul now. Her whole being.   
  
"Forever…" Yuffie whispered, breathing out the word into the playful breeze that was twirling this way and that, brushing up against her face, bobbing her hair up and down. And suddenly he was there with her, the child wind becoming long, gentle fingers that lovingly combed through her ebony strands.   
  
"I told you I would be with you forever," he said, pretending to scold her.   
  
Yuffie turned her head, freeing herself of those loving fingers to regard the man behind her.   
  
"You're not really here," she said tonelessly, feeling her heart pumping painfully, constricting her breath and creating a tight, painful knot within her chest. She turned back and refused to look any longer.   
  
"Always so silly. I love you," he said, and in response to her stony silence he bent down and dipped his head onto the back of her neck, inhaling deeply and smiling into her hair. She shivered, then shook her head emphatically. "Go away. GO AWAY! STOP TORTURING ME LIKE THIS!!!" She started sobbing, and cupped her face with her hands as her thin frame shook with grief.   
  
In an instant, he was beside her, holding her in a strong, protective embrace with the soft silk of his sleeves and the cold metal hardness of his claw pressing against her, but her only reaction was to sob the harder. Her shirt was beginning to get drenched.   
  
He would have nothing of it. "I didn't fall over myself for you to see this kind of nonsense," he whispered fiercely, and with one fluid motion he tipped her chin up and kissed her.   
  
It was just the same as every time he did it. She melted against him, into him, and her tears fell even faster as she wrapped her arms around her lover and squeezed the breath from him.   
  
"I can't be here for long," he admitted. "I came to tell you something important." At those words, the young woman snuggled closer into the warm folds of his cape. Her sobs had long ago been kissed away, and now she breathed softly against him and waited.   
  
"You remember the accident that killed me." It was not a question. The cloth around Yuffie's hands stretched as she gripped the material tightly. "It was the faulty dynamite, and then half of the mine caved in. Honey, what I'm trying to explain is that-"   
  
Suddenly the man paused, and the ninja panicked as, for an instant, she had felt wood beneath her instead of his body. "Vincent?!?" she cried sharply, and then, as his form became substantial again, she rubbed her eyes and stared uncertainly into those blood-red eyes that only she could stand to look at for so long.   
  
"It's alright, Yuffie; I lost my place for a second." But it was not all right, for immediately after he had said the words, he began flickering in and out of existence like someone was adjusting his life antenna. Yuffie cried out as Vincent's form became translucent.   
  
"Yuffie!" the fighter yelled, shouting his message in a desperate attempt to get it to her before his time ran out. "Go to Bone Village! There was…a healing spring…under…" Vincent began to fade away.   
  
"NO!" she cried painfully, lunging forward towards the shaky image of her love and trying to will him back into the material plane. But it was not to be, and Vincent kept fading into darkness. "NO!"   
  
The calm summer breeze was now a whirling, screaming gale. It raged past the trees, forcing up swarms of leaves that hailed around Yuffie, who instinctively brought her arms over her head for protection. Cold wind shrieked into her ears.   
  
"Look under the mines!" Came a sudden call, a call that seemed to come from far away. It echoed in her ears as the force of nature overwhelmed the overwhelmed the ninja and hurled her into the darkness of the night.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Yuffie Kisaragi snapped her eyes open and gasped out for breath. Sweat rolled down her face as she trembled. She wrapped her arms around herself and tried to calm herself, taking slow, deep breaths. Then, when she had calmed down enough to reach out and switch on her bedside lamp, Yuffie bit her lip and did the first thing that came to mind. She picked up the phone and dialed.   
  
"Hello?" A groggy, sleep-filled voice answered her call, and then the owner of the voice yawned.   
"Cloud," said Yuffie.   
  
"YUFFIE?! What in the world are you up to, calling me this late? …You don't need me to bail you out of jail again, do you?"   
  
"Cloud…"   
  
Cloud, sensing that something was wrong with his friend, immediately became fully awake. "Yuffie, what is it?! Are you all right??"   
  
"…I need you to look something up for me. I want a complete and fully detailed map of the area below the Bone Village mines. As fast as you can," Yuffie told the blond ex-SOLDIER that had become one of her few best friends throughout the years. After a few moments of silence, the young woman heard Cloud drumming his fingers softly.   
  
"Oh, Yuffie. Not this again…I know that this is hard for you to accept, girl, but Vincent-Vincent's really dead, Yuffs." Cloud always used her nickname when he was aggravated, Yuffie remembered.   
  
"Just do this for me, Cloud. Please."   
  
"Mmm…Cloud? Whas' goinon?" Yuffie heard a female voice mumble sleepily on Cloud's end of the phone. Tifa, she realized, and she almost smirked despite her confused state. Now it was official, she thought happily. But then images of her dream came back to her, and she sobered up.   
  
"…Fine. I'll do it, if only to ease you out of that depression we all hate so much," Her friend agreed reluctantly. "But don't get your hopes up, little Wutai ninja. I don't want to see you like this ever again."   
  
"Yoshi," Yuffie agreed half-heartedly.   
  
"And Yuffs…"   
  
"Yeah?"   
  
After a few moments of hushed discussion, Cloud came back to the phone. "Tifa and I would feel a whole lot more reassured if you would come over and stay with us for a while," he told her, eliciting a small smile from her.   
  
"I'll think about it," she said, unsure.   
  
"Think!! Yuffie, we are coming to get you in two days!! And pack your things! No arguments," the young man cut in as Yuffie started to protest, albeit a bit weakly.   
  
"…Thanks Cloud."   
  
Cloud's tone became more tender as he considered the mood Yuffie must be in. A few weeks after it had happened - the accident that had left Vincent Valentine buried under tons of rock and steel - Cid, on a visit to check up on the grieving ninja, had discovered her in the bathroom trying to drown herself and had nearly murdered her himself. Afterwards on realizing that the numb girl had not been eating, the rough-mouthed pilot had had to literally tie her down and force-feed her until Yuffie had agreed to start eating again. It had been a hard time on the whole gang.   
  
"No problem, Yuffs. We'll see you soon. Now go back to sleep and try to be CHEERFUL like the Yuffie that I like!!" He pretended to be stern.   
  
"Okay."   
  
"Good."   
  
The phone clicked, and Yuffie waited until the dial tone started droning to hang up the phone.   
  
She gathered her blankets around her and snuggled into bed, then turned off the light.   
  
'Under the mines…' the young fighter thought.   
  
After a while, Yuffie sigh and closed her eyes, shifting to her right side as she always did. And she eventually drifted off into unconsciousness, into a blissful, dreamless sleep of mental exhaustion.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
* * *   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Gorlon jumped up and down excitedly. Hopping from foot to foot, he frantically grabbed his hunting stick and poked his sleeping companion with it. Hard.   
  
Vanduur yowled and shot up like a rocket, then glared at the hyper Puruku and he rubbed his pained posterior.   
  
"What in the blazes are you up to?!?" he grumbled. "I was having a wonderful dream about eating a Mako berry and you just HAD to go and-" Vanduur was stopped short as Gorlon ran up to him and shook him back and forth.   
  
Then he let go abruptly and pointed a long purple finger towards a soiled-looking heap of red and black. A low groan slowly issued from the mass as Vanduur stared, and the Puruku nearly yelled out in surprise.   
  
Gorlon grinned from ear to ear.   
  
"He's waking up!!!!"   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
~ E N D C H A P T E R 1 ~   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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This fan fiction(I know I told you guys I was going on author's hiatus but D -!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)was finished at 9:34 PM (EDT) on Sunday, November 11th, 2001 by TBOtaku~!! Wee~!!!! WEEWEEWEEWEEWEEWEEWEE I'M DONE!!!! AND TO THINK THAT I WAS GOING TO MAKE THIS A ONE-SHOT FIC!!!!!!!!!! Well, TBO strikes again, created yet another (probably) beginning to ANOTHER long series in the happy, happy realm of YUFFIE KISARAGI/VINCENT VALENTINE ADVENTURE/ROMANCE FICS!!!!!! THE DRAMA!!!!!!!! *nearly snorts up an elephant, as her friends like to say*   
  
V^_^V ^__^= ^_^x :D minna!!!!!!!!   
  
-TBO goes out to start plotting her next fic and to TRY TO CONQUER THE WORLD!!!!!!! I was kidding about that part; I never plot my fics...   
  
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!!!!!! Ciao for now, cats!!   
  
~wook~ ß'Cuz I know you love that word…^_~V" ^_^O"   
  
~end rant~   
  
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